When You Are Old
by smileyfacebabe
Summary: Bilbo turns eleventy-nine and receives a present that brings back a lot of old musty memories. Elrond knows better than to interrupt musty old memories, having more than a few himself. (Was supposed to be Bagginshield, but isn't really at all upon reflection.)


Author's Note: Okay, so I haven't proof read this because it's 1:30 and I'm exhausted and I have work tomorrow and then astronomy lab and I just wanna go ahead and get this out. I'll proof read and edit and update it later. Also below the story is the poem which inspired this.

Disclaimer: Don't own shit.

Shout out: To my booooo, who was like "you're gonna write a thing, right", like, omfg yeah I'm gonna write a thing only it was way, way less Bagginshieldy than I meant it to be oops sorry boo maybe I'll write you a mushier Bagginshieldery version later because while apologizing I sort of gave myself another idea but first _sleep_.

* * *

Bilbo Baggins was eleventy-nine and for the most part he was a quiet hobbit. He had finished his book nearly six months before his birthday and mostly spent his day now curled up, dozing in his chair. To be quite honest he hardly noticed the event as it happened, the only reminder of such a day being any different than its fellows being Elrond's visit. But Bilbo dozed for most of the day, curled in the chair Elrond had gifted him with upon his first year in Rivendale. Sometimes he sat by the fireplace in his rooms, but often he was found on the balcony instead. The summer breeze that curled through the halls chilled his old bones, making him stiff when he awoke each time he nodded off in his chair.

Bilbo was nothing like the hobbit that had first passed through Rivendale all those years ago. His mind wandered as the days went by, his head nearly constantly tipped back as he dozed in the sunlight that streamed through the valley. For the most part the elves within Rivendale left the little hobbit to his napping, though Arwen often came to sit with him, finding solace in his company. He woke occasionally, muttering names she did not recognize under his breath, and she made sure to remind him quietly where he was and who she was. He always snorted at her, quite the rude habit he had picked up long ago, patting the arms of his chair with his wrinkled trembling fingers and tutting at her.

"I'm old, dearie, not empty between my ears," he always told her. "I know who you are, daughter of Elrond. No fussing required."

But Bilbo Baggins was fussed over whether he liked it or not, especially on his birthday. Elrond shook him awake on his eleventy-ninth birthday, his large hand warm on the hobbit's bony shoulder. "Bilbo," the elf said quietly. He was crouched next to Bilbo's chair, a small indent creased upon his forehead. Bilbo blinked his eyes at him, scrunching his nose slightly as he fought to focus. The hobbit could have sworn Arwen had been just beside him, telling him of the valley's plans for the starlight festival…

"Elrond," Bilbo said. His voice rasped like a dusty wind, scraping against his throat. He swallowed and Elrond gifted him with a small smile and an outstretched hand. Within his grip was a mug of warm cider, which Bilbo accepted and sipped at slowly.

"Happy birthday, master hobbit," Elrond said lowly. He sat upon a low bench, which had been placed next to Bilbo's chair in the spacious room for the sole purpose of letting the hobbit and the elves who visited him sit at the same height level. This meant Bilbo's chair had a few steps leading up to the seat, which was a few feet off the ground. Bilbo quite liked his chair.

"Is it my birthday," he asked, smiling a little bit. He felt like a good nap would be nice, but it would be rude of him to nod off while Elrond was there. He thought about Elrond's statement for a moment and then decided that if the elf lord said it was his birthday then it must, in fact, be his birthday. "So it is," he continued, before Elrond could interrupt. But Elrond never interrupted and instead sat on the bench wearing the same small smile he had gifted Bilbo with upon his first visit to Rivendale.

"I don't have a present for you," the hobbit told the elf lord plainly. Elrond was a little too dignified to give the wrinkled old creature named Bilbo Baggins a shrug, but Bilbo liked to think he would have had he been a man or a hobbit. He certainly would have if he had been a dwarf, after all.

A sharp snap of hurt bloomed through Bilbo's chest. He brought the mug of warm cider to his lips and focused on the elf next to him. Elrond hummed non-comically in the back of his throat before pulling something out of the sleeve of his tunic and presenting it to Bilbo.

"One day you must teach me how elves keep so much up their sleeves so easily," Bilbo grumbled. Elrond hummed and smiled, saying nothing, but Bilbo didn't much expect him too, not honestly. The elves had their secrets that not even Bilbo was allowed to know, which didn't bother him much. Everyone deserved their privacy after all, even nosey elves who had already opened his packages for him. Bilbo raised an eyebrow at Elrond for the rumpled, partially opened package, but said nothing.

Inside the brown paper was a layer of thin fur, most likely from some kind of wolf's pelt. It was sort and warm under Bilbo's fingers and he spent a moment dragging his nails across it. Elrond made no move to rush him and after several long moments of enjoying the pelt, which seemed to be long enough that it had been tailored into some sort of shawl, Bilbo peeled it back to reveal the true gift underneath. A large rough book sat under the smooth pelt, thick with uneven pages. It smelt of metal and must, like dirt and earth and rock. Bilbo Baggins knew that smell, had spent several weeks trying to wash it out of his hair and forget how much he had wanted to stay.

'_The Tales You Never Heard'_ the title read, in hand writing that had been familiar an age before, when he was fifty-turning-fifty-one. Bilbo traced trembling fingertips over the harsh angular writing, written in Westron. He opened it up slowly, swallowing roughly when he found writing on the inside that didn't match the shape of the letters on the cover.

"Ori was putting this together for you," the writing read, "but he left it in my care to finish while he went off to Moria with Balin. Not much of a story-teller myself, but these are the stories we meant to share with you once our home was reclaimed. Ori thought that since we didn't get a chance to do so you'd like this as a present. Happy birthday, burglar. May your axe be sharper than your enemies and your skin twice as tough."

Bilbo Baggins swallowed thickly and reached up to brush the tears out of his eyes. His hands shook the entire time, but Elrond said not a word, simply waiting. Bilbo breathed in and out slowly, fighting for each breath, his nose filled with the scent of the mountain that clung to the book. He had meant to visit the Lonely Mountain again, to see its glorious halls rebuilt, but upon reaching Rivendale and later finishing his book he found that his body was too tired to make such a journey again. But here was a piece of the mountain, a piece of his secretive dwarves right upon his lap for him to keep.

"I think I shall turn in," Bilbo said. His voice caught, the age worn scratch breathless and tight with emotion. Elrond offered him a hand to steady himself on as he tottered down the steps of his chair and once the hobbit was standing on his own two hairy feet Elrond bent down, taking the pelt that had been wrapped around the book in hand. He then wound the pelt around the little wrinkled hobbit's shoulders, connecting the hidden clasp at the edges so that it would stay. Bilbo thought he must look odd to the elf, dressed in his bright trousers, standing in an elven city while wrapped in dwarven furs. He didn't much care, though, the feeling of the warm pelts already melting into his shoulders.

He reflected sharply on another time, where he and the dwarven company had gathered 'round the fires at night to stave off the cold. Winter was a terrible time for travel, but Thorin had always insisted they couldn't waste a moment of time. Bilbo had spent a lot of time leaning against the various dwarves, their arms wrapped comfortably around his shoulders as they leaned toward the fire. Usually it had been the boys on either side of him, boisterous and loud, but as they drew closer and closer to the mountain it had been Thorin more often than any other, sides pressed together. Thorin had always responded to his grumblings about the cold by remarking that he should have thought about such a thing before running out his door in a pair of trousers that barely passed his knees. Bilbo would always come back with a smart remark that maybe if he had been given more time to prepare he would have been better packed for the trip.

"Can 'ya imagine hosting our lot for weeks," Bofur would exclaim, butting into their conversation at the same point each time. Lousy bunch of eavesdroppers, they were, but a good lot, good and sound. Bilbo would always huff, knowing that more or less every dwarf was watching him by that point.

"Given the proper time to prepare, I would never object to hosting you for however long you wished to visit, I assure you," Bilbo would snap back. Fili and Kili always delighted in his answer, their voices bouncing off one another's as they asked if they would be allowed to visit once they retook the mountain.

"We could spend winter with you," Kili would say enthusiastically, "when we go down to get other and everyone else. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

"Not if you send a note first," Bilbo would promise. Thorin always shifted next to him at that prt, but never said a word.

"We won't just drop our weapons about," Fili always promised quietly, "and it wouldn't be all the dwarves in the kingdom, but you must meet mother."

"Ack, he doesn't want to meet that wicked woman," Dwalin would interject. That would of course start off a whole sub discussion on the Lady Dis, which usually further dissolved into tales of the terror the boys had wrought on the Blue Mountains, growing up underfoot. Bilbo always sat back and let these tales wash over him, pushing his feet closer to the fire and his shoulders further into Thorin's side.

Thorin never once asked if he was invited back to visit with Bilbo in the Shire. Bilbo had dwelled on that thought more than he liked to admit over the years and he reflected on that as he made his slow way back to his quarters. Elrond followed closely behind him, Bilbo's forgotten mug of warm cider in hand, though he did not follow Bilbo into the quiet warmth of his own chambers. He gave the hobbit a short nod, which Bilbo saw but did not register as more than movement out of the corner of his eye, and disappeared from sight, leaving Bilbo to his fireplace, his book, and his low backed armchair. Bilbo dropped down into the armchair, which was pulled as close to the fire as he dared, for even in the summer months he was cold, as if his bones were hollow. Bilbo opened the book in his lab, but found he could not read, lost in thought as he was.

Within the pages in front of him were all the tales Thorin had started to tell him and had never gotten the chance to finish. Thorin Oakenshield, who's damnable pride and blood doomed him to be nothing more than a shattered dream, like so much stardust upon the mountain side.

"Oh Thorin, you daft dwarf, if only you hadn't been so damnably stubborn, nor I so damnably goodwilled," Bilbo murmured into the quiet warmth of his rooms. The rooms were silent after that as Bilbo leafed through the pages of his new book, feeling more awake and alive than he had in years. The hobbit's peace was only broken once, by the arrival of an elf bearing a plate of dinner, but with nothing more than a wave of his hand to indicate the plate should be left on the table Bilbo was left with the crackle and hissing pop of the flames and his dusty maudlin memories.

* * *

_When Your Are Old _by William Butler Yeats

When you are old and gray and full of sleep,  
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,  
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look  
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,  
And loved your beauty with a love false or true;  
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,  
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,  
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled,  
And paced upon the mountains overhead,  
And hid his face amid a crown of stars.


End file.
